Editorial: Rental home hunters with pets facing tough odds

It's a tough decision for any family: keep the family pet or secure a roof over your head.

Necessity dictates the pet will most likely lose out - an agonising decision for any family but an increasing number of prospective tenants face as a result of Tauranga's rental shortage.

This week we reported that desperate tenants were being forced to ditch their pets to be considered for a rental property.

In a snapshot of rental properties available on Trade Me this week, 230 across the Western Bay region were listed. Only two of the advertisements said "pets okay" and one stated pets were "negotiable".

Such figures highlight just how severely the odds are stacked against would-be tenants with pets.

Yes, common sense would suggest that people should take on pets only once they have a property of their own, but circumstances change.

Some pet owners may be moving to the city for job opportunities and may have been homeowners before they moved. Others may have simply relented to pressure from a child intent on adding a pet to the family.

My partner and I faced the same situation when we moved to the Bay several years ago.

We had got our dog a few years earlier when we bought our first home.

We had moved to take up a job opportunity and found ourselves back in the rental market with a serious handicap in the form of a curly-coated retriever. When we started looking for homes to rent it quickly became clear that we were facing an uphill battle.

Few landlords would consider taking on a family with a dog.

A few were prepared to consider allowing cats but the vast majority had a strict no-pets policy.

Luckily we found some understanding landlords who had pets themselves and who were willing to take us on.

Given the odds outlined above, we had hit the jackpot.

I can understand why landlords do not want to rent out their homes to pet owners.

We rented out our first home when we moved cities and can appreciate why people want to protect their investments. The fewer potential problems the better.

In saying that, I sympathise with anyone who finds themselves struggling to find a home.

SPCA operations manager Margaret Rawiri says calls from people wanting to offload their pets to secure a rental property have almost quadrupled over the past year.

Mrs Rawiri says a year ago the SPCA was getting one or two calls every two months but is now getting three to four calls a week. Most owners are in a bind because their new landlord does not allow pets.

"It's not just dogs, but more landlords won't allow tenants to have cats either," she says.

Mrs Rawiri raises the point that the situation may be improved in some way if landlords were able to legally require a pet bond.

Such a move would perhaps give some comfort to landlords and help address better the odds for prospective tenants looking for a home.